Bistro Sakana Vancouver

This is probably the most underrated Japanese restaurant in Vancouver. We booked the famous restaurant across the street but had to wait 1+ hour so we decided to give Sakana a try and was pleasantly surprised!! As soon I noticed all the staffs are Japanese I kinda knew I made the right choice. And sure enough I MADE the right choice!! Great service and good quality of food!! We came here for New Years celebration all the way from Seattle and I must say the food here is so much better than Seattle for half the price! And it’s probably one of the best Japanese restaurants I had so far with decent prices in Vancouver! ( Toratatsu was my favorite but they closed many years ago...)

Nice Japanese fusions restaurant located in Yale Town. Very nice place, very nice people. Food is above average and price is about average too. Well, it's downtown Vancouver. Anyway, I gave a 4 stars. The only complaint is the parking in Yale Town.

Tried out the $59 dine out menu. Overall pretty good. My favourite course would be the appetizer course 1 as it was the perfect balance of flavours and worked perfectly with the texture. I also enjoyed the baked scallop as well as the rolls. The ice cream was okay too, it just felt really sticky and combining the sweet yam and ice cream was way too sweet for my liking.

I thought Bistro Sakana was okay. I wouldn't object to going back but also wouldn't be my first choice. My dining companion really liked it. I liked that the service was attentive and the menu options were very extensive!The food was hit and miss. I was excited by many of the offerings but was sometimes disappointed by the taste. The beef tataki was gorgeously presented. The tempura was fun to eat, but the batter was too thick for my personal preference. And the oysters on the half shell were perfectly shucked. And if you really like overly sauced goma-ae, give theirs a whirl. I prefer mine to have a bit of dressing with my spinach and not vice versa.

The atmosphere was cozy. The lighting setup and the space between tables are perfect. It’s worth your time to try.

Fine ... it's excellent and you should go.I hate sharing but this place pumps out some awesome regular items and has a stellar special / fresh menu.Decent Happy Hour, great booze deals.

I find that with many sushi places you don't get that friendly service.It's more like....you go in...you order....you pay....and you leave. There's nothing wrong with that, but if you like receiving great service, this is a sushi place that gives it.We went for lunch and the food was wonderful. Fresh, tasty and beautifully presented. The Box A for lunch had tempura, Cali roll, rice, fried chicken, sashimi and yellow watermelon to finish off. Nice!The spicy sockeye roll was delicious. The spicy sauce is something in between spicy and sweet and the salmon tasted really fresh. I was quite impressed by the Pork Gyoza I ordered. It was pan-fried which is my favourite and the pork ingredient on the inside was delectable. The dip that came with the gyoza was a mix and had sesame seeds and it was very tasty (see pics).This spot will definitely be our go to sushi from now on.

Came for the dine out menu. Overall it was ok. Tasted good but compared to the price, was sorely lacking. Service was horrible.When we arrived we were seated a few mins after but things went downhill from there. After waiting 10 mins no one came to ask or take our order. We had to flag a server down to let them know we were ready to order. We did the dine out menu with the sake paring. Overall the sake paring wasn’t worth it. Better off ordering a bottle on the side. But even then it’s very over priced. Not completely worth it.After ordering the the first thing that was brought was the sake. Nothing else just the sake. No explanation or anything. Am I suppose to drink it first? Or wait for the first course to come out? After a long while the first course arrived.For what it’s suppose to be it was decent enough. Tasty but found that portion size was a bit small. But again as an appetizer it’s ok. The second course took a while to come out as well. By then we ordered extra bottle of sake. The second course again was tasty but as with the first course was slightly lacking. After what felt like a very long time later the final entree course came out. As with the first two dishes was very tasty and the presentation was good. Again the food tasted good but overall was slightly lacking.While waiting for our dessert to come out one of the waiters decided to “help” by pouring out the sake that was ordered in the side. But he made a mistake and mixed the sake that came out as part of the pairing.Once he realized what had Happened he brought over a extra serving of the sake which was nice of him. But considering how most of the time we were there it felt like we were being ignored, not intentionally, this misunderstanding could have been avoided.The dessert finally came out and it was good.Overall the reasoning for the low rating was due mostly to the service and value compared to pricing.Each time the dishes were brought out the waitress tried to explain what was being brought out but in the end we couldn’t hear what she was saying. She spoke very softly and the background noise overpowered her. Anytime we needed anything we would have to flag down a server to ask for things. Generally any other place it was usual for the servers to come and ask if we needed anything else or how we were enjoying our meals etc. we found none of that here.Bang for buck it’s not worth it.Compared to other similar places, quality and portion size wise you’ll find better options elsewhere but they do somewhat make up for it in taste.Maybe their regular menu is better and much more fair. But looking over their menu on their website I don’t have very high hopes.Maybe my expectations were too high. Or there’s too many similar places around.

We visited during dine out Vancouver with a group of 5.Service was great as well as the value and quality of the food was excellent. Would recommend visiting if in the area. We enjoyed the lime black cod so much we ordered additional pieces.